Many persons, including the elderly, arthritic, amputee, paralytic and bedridden persons are unable to care for their hygienic, health and grooming needs. They are unable to do so because many body areas are inaccessible or difficult to access for applying products such as sun screens, soaps, shampoos, deodorants, toilet waters, body lotions and medications.
The common methods of applying these products with hands or gauze fails these persons because of muscular and joint limitations. Another problem is that they are unable to open many of the containers of the health and beauty products. Consequently they rely on others, such as nurses, friends and family members for meeting their health, hygienic and grooming needs.
When help is unavailable, these needs are often unmet or met only after long delays. Since elderly and bedridden persons may generate strong body odors they need frequent scrubbing and grooming to avoid offending others.
In many cases, elderly and physically handicapped persons are confined in institutions, such as nursing homes, because they are unable to fill their health, hygienic and grooming needs. This reduces their quality of life and increases overall health costs.
Frequently, members of the general public need to relieve or apply lotions and medications to difficult to reach pruritic "itching" body areas. The upper and middle regions of the back are examples of such areas. Other areas present problems of access for applying sunscreens, or scrubbing for cleanliness before or after swimming or during bathing. An absence of sunscreen lotions or oils over the entire back region may result in severe sunburn.